All was fine in cartoonland until one day, a big, bad executive decided that they didn’t like Stan Freberg’s voice for the Papa Coyote. Now, let me start by saying that I wouldn’t tell this story if I thought it put Stan in a bad light. In fact, I’m going to prove just the opposite. And second, I don’t remember who it was that wanted the voice changed and even if I did, I wouldn’t say.

This late into the production they actually held auditions and cast Dee Bradley Baker as the new voice. Dee is a fine actor and works all the time, but here’s what happened.

There are two actors that would always give you a funny line-reading that you weren’t expecting. One of them was Daws Butler and the other was his sometimes partner, Stan Freberg.

Daws Butler and Stan Freberg behind the scenes of the puppet show “Time For Beany” circa 1950. Daws is operating Captain Huffenpuff and Beany, while Stan has Cecil and Dishonest John.

This was one of the things that Daws taught in his acting workshop. He would say, “Don’t be cosmetic.” What he meant by a cosmetic reading was the way 98% of the people who would go in to read for something would read it. Daws would suggest a different reading, like emphasizing the pronoun rather than the verb. Since Stan and Daws worked together so closely in those early days of television, their acting styles grew out of each other. And I think Stan would even say that he learned to act by watching Daws.

So, they brought Dee Baker in to record a new track. By this time, the animation was finished and in color, so the lip-synch couldn’t be changed. What this meant was that in order to stay in synch, Dee had to copy Stan’s quirky and funny line-readings. They ended up with a track that was identical to Stan’s, just with a different voice. We convinced the powers that be that the original was far superior and it stayed in the picture.

Once again, this is not a slam at Dee Baker. He was put in a very awkward position. But I don’t need to stand up for him. He’s one of a handful of really successful voice people in this town. I want to explain why I feel that Stan comes out looking good in this. I think it wasn’t Stan’s voice that the executive objected to, but the quirky readings. The executive was looking for the “cosmetic” reading. Except, the non-cosmetic reading is what makes the performance stand out. I’ve seen producers argue with Daws over line readings, when clearly what Daws did was much funnier. When you had a creative director like Joe Barbera, he would let Daws go wild. That’s why those early H-B cartoons are so funny. And that’s why Stan and Daws still rank as two of the best voice people to ever grace a Hollywood cartoon.

Stan Freberg, Daws Butler and Friends, circa 1980

Tomorrow, the end of the story… I think.

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